Cross-party report says BT should be forced to sell Openreach

I am a reporter at City A.M. looking at the stories, people and data behind political events from the UK, Europe and further afield. I also write about infrastructure and transport, as well as broader issues around global business.

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James Nickerson

The report says Openreach should be sold to increase competition (Source: Getty)

A report backed by 121 cross-party MPs says that BT should be forced to sell Openreach due to poor performance.

The report, published by the cross-party British Infrastructure Group (BIG), said that Openreach, the country's leading broadband provider, had only partially extended superfast broadband, despite £1.7bn of government money.

Former Conservative chairman Grant Shapps, who led the cross-party report, said the "natural monopoly" was costing the economy £11bn a year, as Openreach currently "makes vast profits and finds little reason to invest in the network, install new lines or even fix faults in a properly timely manner".

But BT boss Gavin Patterson told the BBC that forcing BT to sell Openreach would end up creating "huge uncertainty and create a weaker company that ultimately could be vulnerable to takeover".